First news from F8 annual Facebook conference

Mark Zuckerberg announced a few highlights of this year: giving people more options to connect through the Facebook family of apps, and previewing the future of sharing. Some of the biggest changes that were announced are:

A video player that can be embedded onto other sites – users will now be able to embed a video hosted on Facebook on their site, before the only way was was to link to Facebook page or share it through the platform itself  which most users were not happy about.

Spherical Video Coming to News Feed — Previewing an immersive, 360-degree video experience in News Feed that lets you choose the viewing angle to explore your surroundings.

Messenger Platform — Introducing a new way for apps to integrate with Messenger so people can better express themselves with GIFs, photos, videos, audio clips and more. For developers, this means more opportunities for growth and engagement.

Businesses on Messenger — Previewing the first steps we’re taking to reinvent the way people communicate and interact with businesses.

New Share Sheet — A simple, consistent experience for sharing from apps to Facebook.

Facebook Analytics for Apps — Facebook Analytics for Apps helps developers build better apps and experiences for people. Developers now have a single place where they can understand their audience, measure how people use their app across devices and improve their marketing campaigns.

LiveRail— Mobile app publishers can now use LiveRail’s monetization platform to manage their video and display ads business. Additionally, LiveRail is enabling publishers to use Facebook’s approach for delivering the right ad to the right audience—meaning better results and better experiences for people.

Internet of Things — Developers can now easily use Parse to build a whole new category of apps for connected devices, from garage door openers to smoke detectors to wearable wristbands.

Social Plugins — Refreshed Social Plugins with updated designs and better mobile experiences that will help people engage with content off Facebook. The Embedded Video Player is an entirely new social plugin that lets publishers embed native Facebook videos in a full-bleed video player. People can now watch and interact with Facebook videos from anywhere on the web.